CV's and Resume's for Interim Contractors/Consultants
How to get work as an HR interim contractor or consultant?
Competition for interim roles is frequently intense, with many professionals attracted to the challenges for any well advertised work assignment, either because it fits perfectly to their strengths, skills and experience OR because it’s a type of work that they would like to develop an expertise for. Others are just curious to try out something new or want to work more flexibly around their personal commitments. And for some whose salaried roles have ended, taking on interim project work is a great way to keep busy and paid whilst searching for a new career position.
Even at the senior level, it is quite normal for an interesting specialist HR project role to receive over 200 applications in a matter of hours of any advertising campaign. If the position is being managed by a company’s own Talent Acquisition or RPO (recruitment process outsourcing) team, then your application is likely to be scanned for a barrage of keywords programmed into an ATS (applicant tracking system) which will determine whether or not it ever gets viewed by a human.
Your application may then be viewed by a recruiter who isn’t used to handling interim hires so could well be deterred by the content or style of the contractor and consulting resume which by their nature tend to have significantly less detail than the full career history of permanent employee documents. After all, if an interim professional is typically engaged on short to medium term engagements, and could easily have 60 different positions over the course of some years, brevity is essential to avoid a 10-page resume! Submitting a professional biography instead of a CV or Resume may seem like a good idea - typically a one or two page document that focuses on core expertise areas, competencies and self described strengths rather than detailed work experiences and achievements. However these too rarely get past the ATS or recruiter inexperienced with interim hires (or even some hiring leaders) who only understand the more traditional CV format and expect every employer company and role worked, to be listed throughout the course of a career.
In these instances, getting your CV or Resume to stand out immediately through the volume of applications, becomes critical for any chance to speak with and impress a hiring leader. There is not one magic formula that is guaranteed to put you at the front of the pack, especially when large volumes of applicants are involved. However, there are some essential elements you should include, to ensure you have the best chance possible of getting to be part of the selection process for any project assignment.
10 tips for creating an HR Interim Contractor CV that stands out
Introduction/ Profile – The first 2-3 lines of an Interim CV gives you, the contracting expert, the opportunity to summarise your expertise and create hiring leader interest in your skills, knowledge and experience. It is vital to remember that it is the first thing they read and is the equivalent of the “elevator pitch”. Too little detail and you’ll be making the selection task harder for the reader. Too much detail (and especially too many adjectives and sweeping statements) and you’ll have the reader put off by your sales pitch. Hiring leaders simply want to know, quickly, how you can solve their challenges. How you can “take away the pain”.
Tailor to the vacancy - Don’t submit a document full of your L&D project achievements when the project has a focus on something else altogether.
Length – An Interim CV is typically 2-3 pages long because most hiring leaders just don’t want to wade through the minutiae of every project you worked on. Additionally, at this senior level, it is important to be able to demonstrate and highlight your experience in a concise manner in the same way as you would (hopefully) compile a factual and to the point executive report.
Projects – Focus on the projects you have managed or been heavily involved in, what you personally were tasked to achieve or deliver on, budgets and teams you managed, any unique challenges you overcame, and the outcome. Harking back to point 2, ideally the projects you list and/or have extra details noted for will be specifically relevant to the new work assignment you want to be considered for.
Facts and Figures – Wherever possible apply numbers. As an example, a bullet point referencing how you managed a large-scale redundancy program will not have the impact of noting how you managed a large scale redundancy program affecting 5000 employees which saved $2 million in costs realised within 3 months with zero dispute claims. You need to bring your story “to life” and give commercial context.
Specialism - We recently took a random set of 150 Interim HR executive CV’s, and found that every applicant claimed deep subject matter expertise on everything pertaining to HR across a multitude of industries and company types and sizes! It is difficult to understand how any single person could have that deep a knowledge spanning so vast a field. And it makes hiring leaders suspicious. By all means claim a working knowledge. And be sure to highlight the fields where you truly have depth of expertise, either because of additional studies, extensive first hand experience, or where you’re sought out by others as a genuine thought leader. Promote the competencies for which you can prove repeated strengths. But be wary of claiming to be the expert for everything.
USP - What is it that truly makes you “stand out” from your peers and/or highlights the additional value you can bring to a project? Having international markets expertise, being strong for relationship building, etc etc - this is par for the course and assuredly does not stand out. In stark contrast to the usual “HR speak”, one of our Interim experts pitches himself as the “skinny margins guy” - over and over again he’s managed to weave magic to drive through projects with seemingly impossible resources. Another of our Interim experts pitches herself as the “HR politician” - citing a track record for going in and cleaning up internal leadership disputes. Both continue to secure interesting, broader range projects, but they’ve found a way to really create a memorable impression that gets them a foot in the door to speak with hiring leaders.
Designated Interim and Permanent categories – Break down and separate your Interim and permanent experience. A hiring leader will always look to see the interim projects you have completed in different companies and will want to quickly assess how your successes could be relevant and replicated for their project.
Values statements - Exercise caution here. Stating that you’re a firm believer of the 9 box model as the best tool to measure employee performance, will not land well with the hiring leader who needs exactly your expertise otherwise for their project, but doesn’t agree with that particular statement. Certainly you want to show that you have expert opinions, but be wary of the doors that may close because of opinion differences that aren’t necessarily relevant to the project you would be paid to work on.
Accuracy - Check, check, and check again. Spelling and grammatical errors, odd punctuation and spacing, date discrepancies….these things come more into play than usual, in part because you’re an “expert” so get held to a different level of accountability, and in part because you’ll likely be writing quite a few reports on behalf of the HR executive during your work assignment.
Will a great Resume get me an HR interim job interview?
Be aware that even after you spend time and effort creating a stand out document, it may still not get you the results you hope for. A majority of interim HR positions are not managed by hiring companies directly, but instead are handled by specialist interim recruitment agencies who are usually better equipped for the knowledge and systems to handle the contract and payroll complexities along with the compliance requirements for taxation and liability risk. Additionally, the very nature of short term specialist project skills needed usually “yesterday”, means it simply isn’t practical nor worth the time of an in-house Talent Acquisition team to build talent pipelines for these types of “one off” hiring profiles. Hiring leaders frequently default to specialist agencies who can supply candidates within very short and even immediate timelines.
Whilst a specialist interim recruiter will want to see your HR CV or Resume, it is not usually the determining factor in whether you secure an interview, but is instead used simply a backup document. Typically the specialist interim recruiter will have a relationship with the hiring leader, that allows the recruiter to “bring to life” the key information on an applicants suitability (technical skills, experience, expertise, presentation style, personality), which then secures an interview. It is quite common for interviews to be secured off the back of those conversations with hiring leaders, without a CV even being sent!
Whenever a specialist interim agency is involved, your own relationship with the recruiter will go a long way to determining your success rate in securing interview opportunities and is likely to over-ride the need to have an attention getting CV, Resume or professional biography. You can imagine the impact on a hiring leader who hears “...and I’ve had this interim contractor working on 4 different HR projects now and each of those companies raved about the results that were achieved”. For sure, we frequently see instances where interim specialist recruiters just tap into their favourite “go to” network of HR professionals, and submit initial candidate shortlists even before advertising any role, so any new applicants are simply playing catch up in the process.
How to build a relationship with a specialist recruiter?
This is tricky. The best interim recruiters are careful about having true partnerships with their interim contractors and typically they have more contractors and consultants wanting to work with them, than they’ll ever have project work for. Those recruiters actively seek to work with HR professionals who will invest in a long term, win-win relationship. No decent recruiter needs to put their own hard earned reputation at risk in making a quick buck through an HR contractor who:
quits the assignment early just to chase better money elsewhere
causes unnecessary issues for the hiring leader or project team
doesn’t return calls or communications except when they’re looking for a new job
repeatedly struggles on flexibility for interview and call scheduling
isn’t consistent with the recruiter and hiring leader on contracting charge rates
asks hiring leaders directly if they would consider converting the contract to a salaried hire
doesn’t take advice or feedback with good grace
isn’t someone that the recruiter likes and wants to work with
It’s a two way street because if you have the choice, you’re also not going to want to work with a recruiter who:
doesn’t return your calls
doesn’t share feedback or updates in a timely fashion
is unreasonable on flexibility for interview and call scheduling
doesn’t help with admin and pay hiccups
isn’t supportive when a project assignment goes sour
isn’t credible and aligned with your values
isn’t respectful of your time, expertise and market value
keeps asking you to consider roles that aren’t appropriate
doesn’t represent you in the best possible light
isn’t someone that you like and enjoy working with
The interim CV can be a valuable tool to get yourself into any recruitment process but becoming part of the “go to” network of an interim recruiter might actually play a more important part. Whilst it is not possible to have effective relationships with hundreds of agencies in a market, it is worthwhile to be aligned with those who are most likely to be your ambassador in opening doors to secure new work assignments.
Look for the recruiters who actually specialise in HR project hires - they’ll better understand your experiences and achievements, your expertise, your transferable skills. Which means they’re likely to be better at “selling” you to a hiring leader. Look for the recruiters who freely share appropriate knowledge - market trends, best practice, data, development tools, useful case studies, etc. And look for ways where you can add value back to the relationship. Be quick to help with recommendations and advice, use the recruiter for your own hiring needs if appropriate, and be a vocal advocate for great service. View the relationship as a long-term project because ultimately both of you will benefit when you secure those particularly interesting work project challenges.
About the Author
Ian Mael is valued across his HR network for his diligent communications and authentic partnerships. As the leader for interim HR executive hires at Carter Morris, he brings over 15 years of recruitment experience for multi sector hires within demanding deadlines for the full range of specialist roles within the HR profession.